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The Hamilton 68 Twitter File
Project Hamilton 68 falsely labeled many natural persons as Russian agents, or bots, at the behest of a self-appointed thought police force.
Yesterday afternoon, Matt Taibbi released yet another Twitter Files thread, which he numbers 15. (Actually it should be 16, but Lee Fang forgot to number his own Twitter Files release, which explains the confusion.) His target this time is one that has come up before: Hamilton 68, which figured in Twitter Files 14 (Russiagate). Hamilton 68 was a project of a former FBI counterintelligence official, and existed solely to accuse natural-person accountholders of being Russian bots. Two weeks after first breaking the story, Taibbi is following up on it.
What was Hamilton 68
Hamilton 68 had the backing of an entity calling itself Americans Securing Democracy. In Twitter Files 14, Taibbi mentioned it here:
Two days ago, Matt Taibbi tweeted his public reply to seven CIA officials and “neo-conservative” commentators who refused comment on Hamilton 68. The seven were Michael Morrell (CBS), Bill Kristol (The Weekly Standard), Clint Watts (the architect of Hamilton 68), Toomas Hendrik, Michael McFaul (former U.S. Ambassador to Russia), Ana Palacio, and John Podesta. Taibbi called them out for saying “No comment,” and said, “I have the list. Time to come clean.”
Alliance for Securing Democracy answered back with two links to their for-public-consumption statements about Hamilton 68 and how it worked. Matt Taibbi contemptuously told them he didn’t need their public statements, for he had the real story.
They never did respond, so Matt Taibbi released the thread yesterday morning, beginning at 7:49 a.m. Pacific Time.
The latest Twitter Files thread
Herewith the thread, as every other tweet – the odd numbers, because this thread has 43 tweets in all:
After publishing the thread, Taibbi “quote-tweeted” the first tweet, then adds this:
That last is telling. Mother Jones has been a leftist publication for as long as it has existed. But until now it has never cooperated with any kind of elite. We now see it taking feed essentially from the CIA, the NSC, and the WEF. In fact, Mr. Taibbi included a screencap from Mother Jones in one of his tweets.
In fact, Mr. Taibbi promised to “assemble a list of news stories and TV segments pegged to Hamilton 68.” He said he hoped to publish it over the weekend.
He said more:
Taibbi expressed more anger at the decline of journalistic standards that would let a project like Hamilton 68 succeed.
He then called out three United States Senators for promoting Hamilton 68’s work products:
The most remarkable entry on that list is the name of Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.). Of Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one can expect no better.
Reaction
Reaction varies, as usual, from “Wow” to “There, you see” to “Ho Hum.” In the “Ho Hum” category, physician Alastair McAlpine accuses Taibbi of “[carrying Elon’s water for these nothingburger Twitter files.” In reply, someone calls out Dr. McAlpine for giving assurances on the COVID vaccines, assurances that have proved false.
Elon Musk expressed anger in this ironical statement:
User Jim Stinson added another news organization, McClatchey, who also published stories about Russian bots. Of note is that Harmeet Dhillon follows McClatchey, and so does Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).
Several other users left reactions agreeing with Taibbi and pouring contempt on legacy media, universities, and other Hamilton 68 followers.
Hamilton 68 – an analysis
Hamilton 68 reminds CNAV of 1984 by George Orwell. They in fact functioned as a Ministry of Truth. Only instead of saying, “We have always been at war with Eastasia,” they said, “We have always been at war with Russia.” War is an instrument of fear. Those bent on internal tyranny always use the fear of external attack to explain their behavior. We say explain, for one can never justify it, nor excuse it, either.
Taibbi assumes that Twitter’s moderational team were not simpatico with Hamilton 68 or Alliance Security Democracy. Therefore, Twitter executives feared that organization, as Chinese subjects might fear the Chinese Communist Party. But notice that many of the executive urging “caution,” got jobs in the Biden administration. This leads CNAV to suspect that the Deep State salted Twitter with troublemakers. They then rewarded their loyalty with plum jobs beginning in 2021. And how could anyone promise that, and how could these executives believe the promises? Either the persons on both sides were maniacs – or they had reason to know that “the fix” would be in.
Elon Musk understands at least what demonstrably happened at Twitter. His expression of anger suggests he is determined never to let that happen again. But others have expressed the need for “parallel institutions,” so that future Hamilton 68s literally cannot matter.
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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